How to tell if a 2600 game is truly sealed?

[cloudmann]

Even when these games started coming to the stores sealed, lots of shops (especially at the local Mall) would cut open the plastic, remove the contents of the box, and put all the empty boxes on the shelves. That way, 1) no one could run off with the game and 2) the staff and customers could just look at the shelf to see what was left for sale.

 

Lots of time, a brand new game could be opened. Back in my youth, I bought maybe 5 games out of 50 that had the shrink wrap intact.

[bojay1997]

So if the Tigervision have the hanging tab inside a seal, how would a shop hang them? Surely they'l be like the Atari sealed games, hanging tap glued onto the seal.

 

That's the estate sale they're going on about in 'Collection' forum

 

WTF? They were not sealed, they were hung up by the tabs built into the box. Do you not have one single Tigervision box like that?

 

I at one point had several sealed cases of Marauder and I can confirm that it was shipped to retailers without any shrink-wrap. I would guess most of the other Tigervision games had no factory wrap either.

 

That Beamrider doesn't look legit. It looks like someone tried to do a NES like seal on it going the wrong way. I have seen some sealed Activision 1983/1984 era games fresh out of the case (although they were for the C64) and they have a very plain seal with a single line on the top and bottom flaps and ether a smooth back or an overlap on the back of the box.

Edited May 31, 2012 by bojay1997

[Godzilla]

if there is a seal sitting on top of it?

[bah]

I can't comment on the games shown here but I have several Atarisoft games for the vic-20 that were sealed when I got them. In every case the shrink wrap appears to have continued shrinking with time to the point that these boxed are crushed to varying degrees and the wrap is still tight across the puckered areas. These boxes do not have wear marks but are actually in worse shape than other unwrapped boxes.

I also have some 2600 boxes with the wrap that have the later style box hang tab that was under the shrink wrap and also a plastic applied tab stuck to the outside of the wrap. These were actually mine as a kid (early 80's) so they were not monkeyed with. My newer atari corp games (red label games/boxes) never had shrink wrap (I also bought these new in the late 80's whent they were on closeout).

[bojay1997]

I can't comment on the games shown here but I have several Atarisoft games for the vic-20 that were sealed when I got them. In every case the shrink wrap appears to have continued shrinking with time to the point that these boxed are crushed to varying degrees and the wrap is still tight across the puckered areas. These boxes do not have wear marks but are actually in worse shape than other unwrapped boxes.

I also have some 2600 boxes with the wrap that have the later style box hang tab that was under the shrink wrap and also a plastic applied tab stuck to the outside of the wrap. These were actually mine as a kid (early 80's) so they were not monkeyed with. My newer atari corp games (red label games/boxes) never had shrink wrap (I also bought these new in the late 80's whent they were on closeout).

 

I think we can all agree that there were some retailers and probably distributors that applied their own shrinkwrap to the games once they received them from Atari and other companies. Certainly, I'm sure when games were being sold for pennies on the dollar in giant dump bins at different stores, they were probably wrapped to deter theft. Unfortunately, that doesn't really answer the OPs question other than the fact that some of us have purchased these games in sealed manufacturers cases in the past and found that they either had no factory wrap or different wrap patterns than the ones he has.

[knightrider_82]

I finally got around to opening these games tonight. It was a hard choice but one I felt I had to do. They all looked to be used with the exception of Miner II and Jawbreaker. I have not opened Double dragon, pitfall II, Beamrider, and Springer. Beamrider is actually a Pal version as a sticker clearly states on the box. Springer is an Atari Computer game. The reason I think the 2 might actually be new was that Miner had tape on the bottom of the box as mentioned earlier in the post, and the top of the box was extremely difficult to open. Jawbreaker had tape on both sides. All the games had the manuals!! One of the coolest things I found in 1 of them was a brochure for tigervision games! It had awesome artwork and prices to buy them, 1 of which was River Patrol...you could have bought it for $29.95 lol. I need to post a pic of it as I think it is incredible. Thanks for all your help on this topic.

[atari181]

I finally got around to opening these games tonight. It was a hard choice but one I felt I had to do. They all looked to be used with the exception of Miner II and Jawbreaker. I have not opened Double dragon, pitfall II, Beamrider, and Springer. Beamrider is actually a Pal version as a sticker clearly states on the box. Springer is an Atari Computer game. The reason I think the 2 might actually be new was that Miner had tape on the bottom of the box as mentioned earlier in the post, and the top of the box was extremely difficult to open. Jawbreaker had tape on both sides. All the games had the manuals!! One of the coolest things I found in 1 of them was a brochure for tigervision games! It had awesome artwork and prices to buy them, 1 of which was River Patrol...you could have bought it for $29.95 lol. I need to post a pic of it as I think it is incredible. Thanks for all your help on this topic.

That is a great brochure, I have one and love seeing River Patrol for $30

[Zwackery]

So, where did these new used shrinkwrapped games come from, and do you feel like you were misled on your purchase?

[dobidy]

I took a look at my own CIB and sealed stuff and found that most of mine have a Zellers Canada price tag. The shrinkwrapped games are Atari Venture, Activision Decathlon and Epyx Winter Games. I have a bunch of different companies releases sporting the Zellers price tag and remnants of the shrinkwrap. I also have one from Canadian Tire. I know Canadian Tire shrinkwrapped their games way back when as that is where I bought most of my games.

De

[Schizophretard]

Collectors should stop worrying about "sealed" and start treating them like coin or card enthusiast do. Find ways to preserve them instead of worrying about the originality of the shrink wrap.

 

But you would still have to ask,"How to tell if a 2600 game is truly CIB?" There are label variations that go with specific box and manual variations.

[WSGEXE]

Collectors should stop worrying about "sealed" and start treating them like coin or card enthusiast do. Find ways to preserve them instead of worrying about the originality of the shrink wrap.

 

But you would still have to ask,"How to tell if a 2600 game is truly CIB?" There are label variations that go with specific box and manual variations.

 

This. This is exactly why I still grudgingly buy sealed. Mostly because I can hold a seller accountable if the variant is in question. That and I get to enjoy that new 80s smell.